I just got back from the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, the best air museum in the state and one of the greatest in the country. I posted my pictures from my last visitÖ somewhere, possibly in the Pictures thread, but I have more now. The museum is huge now, three times the size it was, invorporating an IMAX theater, two restaurants, several daycare/play center things, an air museum and a space museum, along with workshops for restoring aircraft and armor.

Now, I didnít bother to snap photos of the plaques denoting each object, so bear with me if I donít remember the names of some of the aircraft. If you have an idea, please let me know. In fact, despite spending 4 hours wandering the museum, we didnít have enough time to read most of the plaques at all. I would have stayed much longer, but the blasted place closed on us. Anyway, my father (you can see him in a lot of pictures; black sweater, blue jeans) and I started outside the aviation museum:

Shooting Star

MiG-15. This particular one was constructed in China for use in the Vietnam War, but was eventually sold to the United States.

Various Soviet armored vehicles parked outside. You canít see them all in this shot, but there are two T-34s, a T-55, two wheeled APCs and a tracked one.

One of the APCs. I canít identify it, and there was no plaque. Anyone know what this is? EDIT: TWSP says this is the BRDM-2. EDIT #2: Sumer thinks it's the FUG-70 with some anti-aircraft weaponry. You be the judge. EDIT #3: We know it's a FUG-70 for sure.

Another APC. Any idea? Is it the same as the one above? EDIT: As is this one

T-55

BMP/D, I think. I canít tell which. The gun is freaking massive, Iím shocked it even fits in such a small turret. Which model is this? EDIT: TWSP to the rescue again. PT-76

DC-3 in Operation Overlord scheme. IIRC this particular one actually ran airmail after the warÖ

Sikorsky S-58 (I think) with its engine exposed. Look at the size of that motor!

Kamen

Sikorsky H-5. Itís a really weird helicopter close-up

Ford Tri-Motor

Original interior of the Tri-Motor. Behind the camera is a closet/restroom, I was unable to tell which (it was roped off)

Various helicopters. The one in the foreground has agricultural equipment attached, and the one on the right (Bell 47) was what my dad learned to fly in. This particular one is also seen in the opening credits of MASH. I donít remember what the one on the left is. EDIT: Crookfur believes the mystery chopper to be a Schweizer 300, while Munchy says that the agricultural one is an OH-23 Raven.

YAK-50 acrobatic/trainer. Note the giant ďCCCP 01Ē on its tail, despite the American pilotís name under the cockpit. Go figure.

Again, no idea what this is. EDIT: PT-22 Recruit trainer, courtesy of Brydog.

L-13 Grasshopper recon plane from Vietnam

B-17. Remember the scene in The Dark Knight where Batman gets snagged by a C-130 in Hong Kong? Thatís based on the real CIA project ďSkyhook,Ē which was pioneered with research flights made by this very airframe. The museum bought it from the government.

Chin turret

The museum has guided tours of the interior of the B-17, which are what the next few photos are from:

Radar operatorís station

Looking into the bomb bay (three 100lb bombs visible on the right) towards the cockpit

Radiomanís station. The blue hat in the lower left is our guide, an old boy who said he served in the Navy but flew in the B-17 as a radioman. He also denied knowing anything about B-17s. UmÖ

Top of the ball turret, showing where the ammo was loaded

Bad picture looking back into the tail, towards the aft gunnerís position. You can actually get up in there, but not from where I was sitting. I neglected to take a picture of that, sorry.

Interior of the ball turret, looking in from the access hatch. .50 on either side of your head would make quite a racket. Foot holsters are visible above the canopy, and the controls to operate the hydraulics are not all visible in this shot.

F-4 engines. I love how they didnít even bother to try and paint the area near the exhaust, since they knew the sheer power of the engine would obliterate it. Good lord I love this aircraft.

I think this is an F6F Bearcat, but I canít recall (itís either a Bearcat, Hellcat or Wildcat). The tour guide we had flew these in the closing days of the war. This one is a torpedo bomber that never saw combat. Our guide says the carrier landings were so rough and bounced you around so much that he went from 6í4Ē to 5í3 (I hope he was jokingÖ he was short, at least, that's him in the lower left). EDIT: Pontinia and Franberry both say this is the Grumman TBF Avenger

Messerschmitt BF-109. The guide went nuts for this one, pulling on its flaps, extending leading edge thingies, slapping it like mad, etc. I thought he was going to break the damn thing. Itís almost as old as he is!

Supermarine Spitfire. The guide noted that this is a model produced late in the war. You can tell because the wing machine guns have been replaced with a single cannon each. This was because at that stage in the war there was no Luftwaffe left to shoot at, and cannons are better are taking out trains and tanks.

F4U Corsair

Now, I think this is the Wildcat, but Iím not sure. As with the last unknown, itís either the Bearcat, Wildcat, or Hellcat. EDIT: Pontinia says this is the Grumman F6F Hellcat. The guide mentioned that this airframe is unusual, since it only has 4 MGs, when normally it would have 8. You can just make out place where gun #3 would be on the visible wing, but #4 is eluding me. EDIT2: So, four months after I post this, Ara comes back and says that the Hellcat only had 3 guns per wing, and the guide was wrong. Turns out he's right, it would seem.

F-105 Thunderchief. This was amazing to me, since Iíd never even heard of this aircraft before. I wish I had more time to study it up-close. One unusual feature of this airframe is the kill count. 20-30 SAMs are painted on the far side, under the cockpit, but so are- get this- one and a half MiGs. How do you have half a kill?

MiG-17 Fresco

F-100 Super Sabre. Another aircraft I had never heard of.

F-86 Sabre

Two UAVs. The one in the foreground was the first UAV ever, the Mastiff III apparently, entering service in the 1980s. No information is available on the one in the back.

After this I went inside the Spruce Goose. Itís got a little walkway inside with plexiglass shields to keep you in, so my pictures are blurry.

Looking towards the tail. Those little beach balls in the corner are pretty funny. Turns out Hughes was so afraid of his baby sinking the moment he took it out of the hanger, he filled every cavity with those to give it extra buoyancy. They are still finding them wedged in various corners to this day.

Looking towards the nose. For $20 a head, you can go past the fence and tool around with the controls down here. For $50, you can climb the stairs to the cockpit, which is the size of a dump truck, sit in Hughesí chair, etc. There are actually three floors in the Spruce Goose, but the first and third floors are still being restored.

F-5 Tiger II

Iím not sure. Itís a trainer, used by the Blue Angels at one point (obviously). EDIT: Several people have said that this is likely the Grumman F9F Cougar, although some think it's the Grumman F9F Panther. EDIT2: Aralonia says it's the Panther because I remember large wingtip tanks and the Cougar doesn't have them, Panther does.

OMGOMGOMG MiG-29! Fulcrum! :D :D !

<3. Notice the canopy is blacked out. Is it to prevent sun damage, orÖ? Also, anyone know what that dome thing on the upper nose is? Camera? EDIT: According to Crookfur, this is the MiG's IRST

F-14 Tomcat, parked right next to the MiG-29. I canít get ďEbony and IvoryĒ out of my head when looking at these two next to each other.

Another shot of the F-14. We had one come to an airshow here a few years ago, and the stupid pilot parked the thing on tarmac that was too thin, only 2". The fighter ended up sinking into the ground in the middle of the airshow.

F-106 Delta Dart

Talost - January 25, 2009 07:32 AM (GMT)

F-102 Delta Dagger

Bizare aircraft if I ever saw one. P-2 Neptune. Itís basically the B-17, but twice as massive and with two jets replacing two of its props. The P-3 Orion took over for it. Another airframe that I have never heard of. Itís also freaking huge.

Now we crossed over to the space museum. This is entirely new to me, so my pictures are more rushed. Plus, I ran out of time.

Replica V-2. I just about had a heart-attack thinking it was real until a guide corrected me

The combustion chamber for the V-2. It's actually much larger than it appears in this picture, 8-11 feet, since I took this at a high angle.

This one IS legit. American copy of the V-1 called the JB-2 Loon, designed for the invasion of Japan

Some kind of Soviet space pod. Anyone know what it is? EDIT: Izistan believes this to be a Zenit. I guess I always assumed the pod was used by cosmonauts, but I suppose it might have been a spy satellite. I seem to recall something about the plaque mentioning it had a crew in it, though...

The next thing that caught my eye was an entire freaking ballistic missile. Thatís right, they stuck a Titan-II in here. Indoors. You can walk underneath it. My god. Thereís even a replica mission control room/movie theater underneath it where you can watch a 5-minute replay of a Titan-II launch from 2003. Itís so huge that my camera wouldnít get it all in one shot, so I made five:

That first one is the re-entry vehicle for the 9 megaton nuclear warhead that it carried. Itís massive, and the surface is heavily lacquered in flame-retardant materials.

Next, the Redstone ICBM. Worldís first ICBM, they tell me, designed by von Braun the moment he came over to our side.

Bottom of the Redstone. Look how primitive it is!

Seaking lifting a replica Apollo pod

Lunar module. Look at my dad for comparison. Heís about 5í9Ē. This thing is gigantic. No wonder it took the Saturn-V to get it into orbit.

The engine bell from the M-1, a proposed rocket that would have made the Saturn-V look tiny. Itís the most powerful rocket ever built, designed to get manned missions into the outer solar system. In 1960. Wat.

Talost - January 25, 2009 07:33 AM (GMT)

Saturn-V control ring and one of its engines. Apparently this control ring did, well, everything for the rocket. It housed the computers, altimeters, radars, barometers, etc that controlled it, as well as every electrical junction. Itís basically the brain of a Saturn-V

Ullage rocket from the Saturn-Vís 3rd stage. It fires briefly to force fuel in the tanks back against the intakes, so that the 3rd stageís engines can ignite.

The museum had various bits and pieces of a Titan-IV laying around. The guides told me that they were trying to figure out what to do with it, since it was too humongous to fit in the building assembled.

Hereís one of its motors

I believe this is the second stage

First stage, I think

This is one of the engines from an Atlas rocket, which took over from the Redstone, IIRC. It carried the first two Gemini missions into space. One of the plaques noted that when John Glenn agreed to hop into the Atlas for his mission, he knew that 3 of the last 5 Atlas missiles to be launched blew up. The man had balls the size of grapefruit.

A module built for Skylab that ended up being used by NASA to train new astronauts

X-15. Not sure if itís a replica, but I would assume so

Another view. Itís actually got a very similar profile as the F-18 if viewed from below. Interesting.

What I originally came for and ended up only having 10 minutes to see, the museumís SR-71

One of its engines. The other is on display in the aviation museum that I was in earlier.

Engine mount. Look at how gigantic the airframe is

This is fascinating. These are various modules from the aircraft that were only recently declassified. Far left is one of the two cameras (the gold bit on the right of it is the lens, which rotates), big white box and little white box are part of the ECM system and the little black box on the far right is some kind of plotting computer

D-21 spy drone. The basic idea was that it was attached to the SR-71 (I actually have a picture of this somewhere, taken at Boeing Field in Seattle a few years ago), which would then fly to the border of a country. Since the president at the time promised the public that there would be no manned spy flights, we just launched this thing instead. It took the pictures, flew to friendly territory, ejected the film canisters and self-destructed. The film would be recovered mid-air by a C-130. Hell yeah! Sounds great, right? Well, it didnít work so well. It only ever flew over China, and of the ~25 missions it was used on, only 4 were successful.

I donít remember what this is called, but itís a big Soviet probe that they sent to Venus. Also modified one to act as a spy satellite, apparently. Any clues? EDIT: Preston and Izistan say that it's likely the Venera 13

Segment of the Berlin Wall, I think. Since the museum is so new they don't have plaques for everything. That's also why lots of the exhibits are on platforms right now.

Awesome little play structure outside the space museum. I was seriously, seriously tempted to climb to the top of the rocket ship, slide down the fuel line, fly the helicopter and crash the fire truck.

There was so much left to do but I wasnít able to because of time that I want to cry. I needed at least another hour, maybe two. Space suits to photograph, plaques to read, movies to watch, etc.

Central Prestonia - January 25, 2009 07:45 AM (GMT)

The Soviet probe to Venus is Venera something I believe.

Talost - January 25, 2009 07:53 AM (GMT)

Yeah, that's it! Thanks for that, CP. TWSP also told me what the APCs are (BRDM-2s) and the IFV (PT-76), and also pointed out that what I have marked as the Fw-190 is actually the P-40... I'm about to edit the images and captions, trying to rotate them so you don't have to twist your head.

Izistan - January 25, 2009 08:04 AM (GMT)

Yep. Thats either Verena or a later Mars. Mars 3 actually carried a small robot rover and survived 20 seconds on the surface.

As for the "BMP", what you have there is a PT-76.

http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm Any way heres some hawt venus pix. Also note that the Russians deployed two aerostat probes (balloons!) on venus in the 80's. Which is really cool considering no one has done anything like it since. >:|

Izistan - January 25, 2009 08:05 AM (GMT)

Its a mockup of Venera 13 or possibly one of the Vegas. :)

The space capsule is a film return capsule for a Russian spy sat. They were used until the 80's so the age is hard to tell.

Jeuna - January 25, 2009 08:05 AM (GMT)

upload that shiz to wikipedia gogogo

Sumer - January 25, 2009 08:06 AM (GMT)

Talost, that APC is not a BDRM-2, it's a Hungarian FUG-70.

And that isn't a BMD, it's a PT-76.

Edit:

FUG-70:

BDRM-2:

Note the differences.

Edit: FUG-70, my bad. I knew it was one of those two damn Hungarian ones. And they're both based off the BDRM-1, oddly.

Although it has the same armament as the BDRM-2, in a completely different turret.

Talost - January 25, 2009 09:05 AM (GMT)

QUOTE (Central Prestonia @ Jan 25 2009, 12:45 AM)

The Soviet probe to Venus is Venera something I believe.

QUOTE (Izistan @ Jan 25 2009, 01:04 AM)

Yep. Thats either Verena or a later Mars

QUOTE (Izistan @ Jan 25 2009, 01:05 AM)

Its a mockup of Venera 13 or possibly one of the Vegas. :)

Edited in

QUOTE (Jeuna @ Jan 25 2009, 01:05 AM)

upload that shiz to wikipedia gogogo

Ha, well, I'll have to learn how to first. I'm pretty booked tomorrow, so hopefully I can get to it on Monday.

QUOTE (Izistan @ Jan 25 2009, 01:12 AM)

Capsules a Zenit I think.

Edited in

QUOTE (Sumer @ Jan 25 2009, 01:39 AM)

I don't think it's a FUG-70, I know it's a FUG-70. It's not a BDRM-2.

What are the differences? I'll be honest, I'm looking at your pictures and they both look identical.

Keep in mind that this is only about half of the exhibits that the museum has to offer. I didnít take pictures of most models, simulators, games, workshops, research library, IMAX theater or other such locations. Plus the museum is new, so theyíre still shipping in displays. Many, many televisions all over, where you sit in decommissioned passenger airliner seats to watch films about the aircraft, space program and missiles on display.

I actually went to Cape Canaveral a few years ago and saw their museum. Itís better than this one, yes, but not by as much as you might think. Of course, having an entire intact Saturn-V stage 1, the original Apollo control room, every ballistic missile produced in the last six decades and a kick-ass cafeteria in your museum would tend to make a pretty good place to visit.

Pontinia - January 25, 2009 11:47 AM (GMT)

Your Wildcat/Hellcat/Bearcat unknowns:

The Wildcat was F4F, Hellcat was F6F and Bearcat was F8F. The Bearcat had a bubble canopy and a four-bladed prop, so it's not one of those. This pic here: that you have as a Cat is actually a Grumman TBM Avenger. If you look closely over the wing you can see the ball turret.

The other one:is an F6F Hellcat; the giveaway is that dent over the wing; it's an exhaust vent and the F4F didn't have it.

The Blue Angels trainer is bugging me, because I'm sure I recognise it, but I can't quite remember what it's called.

Crookfur - January 25, 2009 12:24 PM (GMT)

yup the wheeled APC/scout car is a FUG-70 you cna tell by the extra vision blocks and the door.from the 3 lights helicopters the unnamed one looks like a schweitzer 300.

And how cna you not have heard of the THUD (thundercheif), the original wild weasel platform, watch more veitnam films!!!

The Blue Angels trainer looks like a F-9 Cougar varient

The dome thign infornt of the MiG-29 is it's IRST sensor.

On the Cobra its TOW mountings and the chin gun is missing and the plane below it is the T-2 Buckeye.

Very nice pics and an awesoem lookign museum.

I really need to get down to Duxford soon and go back to east fortune to take pics of the Vulcan.

Franberry - January 25, 2009 02:22 PM (GMT)

The F6F "Bearcat" is actually a TBF Avenger. The right designation for the Bearcat is the F8F, the F6F is the Hellcat. The "Wildcat/Hellcat" looks more like a Hellcat to me, its def. not a Bearcat. The Blue Angels craft is a F9F Panther, a naval fighter, not a trainer. Cobra missiles are TOWs.

Wiki some of these shots, they're great! Also, are you sure that's an SR-71? A lot of places show A-12s and M-21s in place of SR-71s, especially since there's a D-21 there.EDIT: correction, there is an SR-71 on display at Evergreen according to Wiki. There is only one M21 still in existence on display.

I haven't read all the posts in this thread yet, but I edited in the Avenger, Schweizer 300, and Canary, along with confirming the FUG-70 and adding more to the Corsair II's blurb. I'll be posting again later, since I have to dash off to work right now.

Whitey in the center is an OH-23 Raven. Mister Blue on the left is probably a TH-55 Osage, also known as the Hughes 269 (the Schweizer 300 is a more modern derivative of this, the Air Force only operated the Hughes 269) They all look pretty much the same though, making a definite ID nigh impossible. Best way to tell is looking at how many seats there are. If it's only 2, probably a Hughes 269/TH-55. If 3, probably a Hughes/Schweizer 300.

Talost - January 26, 2009 01:16 AM (GMT)

Went through and edited a lot. First, I updated the blurbs for the Spitfire, F-105 and UAVs. Corrected the Hellcat, Cobra, Buckeye, Cougar, Fulcrum and F-102. I'm fairly sure that it is indeed the Cougar and not the Panther, since I am almost certain that there were no wing-tip tanks. Munchy, I'll edit the helis in a moment.

Iím going to contact the museum and see if I can get an up-to-date list of their aircraft, since the brochure they gave out is obsolete. Iím fairly certain now that the S-58 I have up there is actually an earlier model, and the OV-1 is actually an OV-1D. Weíll see, hopefully by tomorrow. I know that the museum also has a C-130 and many other notable aircraft around somewhere but I couldnít find them in the 4 hours we were there.

Which photos do you guys think I should submit to Wiki? I'm thinking the Titan-II warhead container and the X-38 are the only decent ones.

Oh, and I did some asking around, and you know that replica control room/theater under the missile? It's not a replica. That's actually the control room used for the Brandenburg launches, torn up, packed together, shipped to Oregon and reassembled exactly as it was.

Before I forget, I need to edit one of the rocket engines. I'll have the name/blurb updated in a few.

Brydog - January 26, 2009 02:13 AM (GMT)

Talost, the Hellcat with the 4 guns, if it had a bugle like a pod or something on it's wing then it's a F6F-5N, a night fighter version with radar.

PT-22 Recruit by Ryan.

Lamoni - January 26, 2009 02:45 AM (GMT)

I love that museum. It's so EPIC! And only about 25 miles from where I live. :D

Good job with the pics, Talost.

Talost - January 26, 2009 08:18 AM (GMT)

Thanks, Lamoni. Have you been to see the museum since the remodel? This was all new to me.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I found a mostly complete list of holdings for both museums:

The exhibit also includes many helicopters, reflecting Evergreen Aviation's original helicopter fleet.

Important things I notice in there: the Ford Tri-Motor and BF-109 are both in flight-capable condition and the X-15 is real. I'm still going to call the museum when I get a chance, since this is missing some aircraft I know I saw.

EDIT: Oh, funny story I remembered about the B-17. When the museum acquired it from the CIA, it had no turrets or guns or anything. They pieced it together from other airframes, with the last bit being the chin turret. Apparently the chin turrets are exceedingly rare, worth their weight in gold, and the only one the staff could find was the star attraction in some bar in the Mid-West. Evergreen International was so desperate to get this turret that they bought the bar outright, extracted the turret and then sold the bar again.

The Foton spacecraft used for these flights was a derivative of the 1960's era Vostok/Voskhod manned spacecraft and the Zenit military reconnaissance satellites and was very similar to the Bion and Resurs-F satellites. Prototype Foton satellites were launched as Cosmos 1645, 1744, and 1841. Since 1988 the spacecraft were officially designated as Foton.

I hacve no idea how you mistook the in-line engined P-40 for the radial-engined Fw-190...

QUOTE

F-105 Thunderchief. This was amazing to me, since Iíd never even heard of this aircraft before. I wish I had more time to study it up-close. One unusual feature of this airframe is the kill count. 20-30 SAMs are painted on the far side, under the cockpit, but so are- get this- one and a half MiGs. How do you have half a kill?

Half-kill is a "smoker", where you inflict damage to the plane, but no confirmation that it crashed. More common than you'd think.

Also noted for water-injected engines. Plane is otherwise affectionatly known as the "thud", pretty much an equal love/hate relationship exists between these and F-4 Phantoms (F-105 had aerodynamic issue, single-pilot, for tactical nuclear pentrator type missions, armed with gun).

QUOTE

F-100 Super Sabre. Another aircraft I had never heard of.

First production jet fighter capable of supersonic in level flight.

QUOTE

<3. Notice the canopy is blacked out. Is it to prevent sun damage, orÖ? Also, anyone know what that dome thing on the upper nose is? Camera? EDIT: According to Crookfur, this is the MiG's IRST

Correct, the MiG's much vaunted IRST.

QUOTE

Another shot of the F-14. We had one come to an airshow here a few years ago, and the stupid pilot parked the thing on tarmac that was too thin, only 2". The fighter ended up sinking into the ground in the middle of the airshow.

BTW, excellent view of the F-14s scope for optical IFF as per existing ROE.

QUOTE

The next thing that caught my eye was an entire freaking ballistic missile. Thatís right, they stuck a Titan-II in here. Indoors. You can walk underneath it. My god. Thereís even a replica mission control room/movie theater underneath it where you can watch a 5-minute replay of a Titan-II launch from 2003. Itís so huge that my camera wouldnít get it all in one shot, so I made five:

Yeah, I remember my first encounter with one of those, it was an outdoor fixed display we saw on our way to Florida (to go to the KSC and take pics of rockets), ironicly, it was along the way and right outside a truck-stop we ate at. Rusty as hell but still shear pwnage.

Talost - March 14, 2009 01:37 AM (GMT)

Actually, I've been to the KSC. Pretty epic too, what with having every ballistic missile the US has ever used on display, plus a 1/1 model of the Space Shuttle you can climb around in. Damn good cafeteria and the best gift shop I've ever seen, too. They had moon rocks for like, $5

Hurtful Thoughts - March 14, 2009 03:18 AM (GMT)

Nah, best part was when the bus broke down within sprinting distance of the spacecraft assembly building.

A few folks bolted right then and there... And nobody could stop them...

Me, I was from Wisconsin and poorly aclimated, and suffering from heat exhaustion, that day, I learned what shorts were...

EAA was better IMHO, though I so far have missed every air-show.Though I did have fun during a scout function down there, pwning some JROTC cadets with their discarded paintballs.Next time they should learn to fake a paintball fight better rather than just dump the whole hopper in a bush for some bored scouts to find...Long story short, we put them to good use and disposed of the rest the only proper way we knew how, by using the paintballs to graffitii some tree-stumps.

*The BSA does not condone paintballing, however it does condone stoning of littering JROTC cadets, with paintballs...

Talost - April 5, 2009 03:50 AM (GMT)

So my sister had a track meet in the town of Tillamook, Oregon, which is right on the Pacific coast and also has a cow/person ratio of 5.6/1 (28,000/5,000). Needless to say I was not looking particularly forward to it. Regardless, though, I was able to keep myself entertained by gazing at the MASSIVE BLIMP HANGER in the distance, shimmering like a beautiful mirage. You see, Tillamook used to be the base of a squadron of defense blimps and so two gigantic hangers were built, one of which still stands and houses an air museum. So, after buying like, 4 lbs of cheese curd from the local gourmet dairy company (a side effect of the aforementioned cow/person ratio) we headed on over. Unfortunately, we were all tired, in a rush and the camera was almost out of batteries, so the pics arenít that good or numerous. The first 5 were taken by my dad, too, so not the same angles I would use.

First off we have a Corsair in excellent condition. Notice the lack of fencing around it. You can go right up and touch them (or, if youíre like me, rub up against them and whisper sweet nothings into the engine intakes)

Epic restoration of a Japanese Oscar from the second dubya dubya two. Four were found back in the 90s on an abandoned Japanese airfield on some Russian island, shipped to Seattle and restored before being sold off. The hulks were in awful condition, truly terrible, but they managed to repair them.

Well, these are supposed to be of the (flight-ready) P-38 the museum has, but my dad got weird shots of it, so just pretend it looks majestic.

Nice P-51 with a dummy for scale

My turn with the camera. Started with the collection of engines they have. I donít remember what they all are, but there are a ton and theyíre all in great shape. Gigantic one on the left of the first pic is a Wasp Major, which powered the Corsair and many other planes. In the last picture you can see a Gryphon, which is a major evolution of the Merlin. They had a Merlin sitting next to it, but itís out of shot. Itís almost laughably tiny in comparison. I could probably fit one inside my torso cavity if I had no internal organs.

Damn, forgot to get a pic of the Corsair II they had, but sitting next to it is another P-2 Neptune, this time with gigantic radome underneath. Iíd literally never heard of this plane until I saw the other one mentioned in this thread.

GK-1

DC-3 (lulz, I had it labeled DC-9 and nobody caught it)

F-14 from the side and from the cockpit looking back (itís a field of plane, isnít it?)

I forget. Need some help here, boys EDIT: F4F Wildcat, thanks to Aralonia

PV-2 Harpoon with some erotic noseart. Another new one for me. Second shot is of the open torpedo bay doors

MiG-17

A-26 Invader

The hell if I know EDIT: Chevrokia identified this as the J2F Duck

Talost - April 5, 2009 03:51 AM (GMT)

Avenger? EDIT: Yes, it is, thanks to Ara

All Grumman planes look the same to meÖ EDIT: Sigh, Douglass SBD Dauntless, thank you Aralonia

ME-109. Post-war Luftwaffe fighter, built in Spain, engine from England.

Skyraider

Catalina

Some kind of French jet EDIT: Thanks to both Chev and Ara we have ID'd this as the Aero Vochody L-29 Delfin, a Czech-built Warsaw Pact trainer

OMG. AM-2 Mauler. I didnít know any still existed! I nearly cried when I saw it. Itís the most powerful prop-driven plane ever produced. I included a shot of it from Wikipedia showing its full load during flight testing. Shame it never really saw combat.

Old machinery used for producing helium to gas up the stationís blimps.

Bad shot of the interior. Looks huge, right? Itís even bigger than you think. Clouds form around the top of the roof and the flash on my camera wouldnít touch the far edges. Also, this is taken from the half-way point along its line. Itís twice as long as it looks. Second pic is of the doors looking outside (taken much closer to the end)

Outside they had a Mini-Guppy open for tours, but it was $3 a head to get in and we were already tired, so we left instead. You can see itís Wasp Major engines and propellers in earlier shots.

So thatís it, Iím afraid. Iíll have to get back there eventually and check out some of the other things they have there.

Lamoni - April 5, 2009 04:47 AM (GMT)

Ah yes, the Evergreen and Tillamook air/space museums. Will have to intorduce Yani to those.

Talost - April 5, 2009 04:58 AM (GMT)

Is Yanitaria coming to the Portland area?

Also, sorry for pagebreaker. Worth it, though :P . The museum is in a financial crunch right now, sadly. Half the hanger is being rented as a storage room for an RV dealer, while a company that produces helium airships has set up shop in one of its wings.